I wrote a post on Hayley's excellent thread, and Doug was wondering if I'd post another thread as well, and of course I am delighted to do so! The more threads and comments about his lighting system, the more people will realize this is what they need for their bead and glass photography.

My AMAZING Doug Baldwin lights arrived in the mail late this afternoon, so I stopped everything to take a quick and dirty snap of one of my ocean beads. This pic was taken with no grey scale balance, or adjustment to the depth of field, no exposure adjustment or F-stop changes, no photo editing other than cropping, just a set-up-the-lights-and-shoot session. The camera is a Canon EOS-5D and the photographer is my 12-year-old son.

Not only are the lights the answer to a prayer, but the customer service that Doug gives is top-notch. Do yourself a favour and buy these lights! What a great investment. I look forward to getting all the camera settings and such correct, then we'll really be rocking!

I am hoping to get rid of those annoying hot spots. Can't wait for it to get here but Canadian customs will probably play with it for awhile first, grrrrr. Items always get to the border quickly and then sit , and sit and sit.

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I used a thin stringer of clear glass. I purchased some Styrofoam and put it under the paper I am using. I poked a hole through the paper and pushed the stringer through the paper and into the Styrofoam. The bead sits on the stringer. Does that make sense?

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I used to do this same thing to stand my bead upright. Only, I used a needle stuck in styrofoam. My problem is I am now using a nice vinyl backdrop and don't wanna poke a hole in it.

Sometimes I also use a glass surface as a photo base. Museum wax can usually be seen around the edges and leaves a little residue on the bead. So everytime I rotate it, I have to wipe off the smudge. I like to take a shot of all sides. Maybe I'm too picky? HA!

So I went to the site. So, these lights come as separate units? No white box to set your bead into? Just want to make sure and also ask, do any of you have a hard time finding a surface or location in your home to place your bead on? I would think that a box would eliminate the need to find a surface and would also eliminate unwanted background clutter. Hope this makes sense. Sell me on this!

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Patti T.
Fullerton, CA

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Patti ... yes, the lights come individually and there is no box to set the bead in. It takes (at least for me and I've had them for a couple of years) a lot of trial and error to figure out the best all around shooting surface and angle. I use a 6 foot table (the lights are big) and a piece of glass mounted on about 1-1/2" legs. Personally, I'd love them if the actual light umbrella was smaller so it would be easier to adjust according to what I'm shooting but .... and I've tried them all ... it's the best system out there that I've found.

Hello Patti, the reason there isn't a light tent or box to set the beads into is that it severely restricts the ability of the artist to light and shoot the bead in more than one way which means the box's back wall is always in the photo. By having two separate light boxes on either side of the bead, you can use a variety of surfaces to shoot on and have any number of types of background, such as all white, gradient, shades of gray, black or even reflective. There's far more versatility with my system than with a tent with fixed walls. Please check out my photo website: dougbaldwinphoto.com and the new dedicated website for the light boxes for a range of examples of photography you can shoot with these light boxes: photolightboxes.com. The photos below show both gradient and reflective backgrounds.

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Well, I finally bit the bullet and got the lightboxes. I'm still going to have to figure out the best way to get the most out of my pics but I think we're 80% of the way there just with the shades!! Tweaked for size. Hopefully will figure this out soon......

Thanks Doug

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Thanks Yeepers for the mention and glad you're already getting 80% of where you want to be after a couple of days with the light boxes. Question: Are the jewelry pieces in the middle that lightly colored? The overall photos look close to a good exposure, but maybe a little bright. Hopefully you're using manual exposure and you can darken the shot by raising the shutter speed a click or two. Don't darken by using the aperture as that would affect the depth-of-field. Any automatic exposure method relies on the camera to make the exposure decisions and the cameras aren't that smart, so the resulting exposures will be all over the place and you'll be chasing them in Photoshop trying to make them right. Better to use manual exposure and dial it in at the camera.

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Thanks Doug! It's pretty close. I'm still working with playing around with the settings. I really need to take a good course to learn how to use my camera to its full potential. Still tweaking the settings. Hoping to get it figured out soon!

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You should take one of my Photography classes, it will explain how to set the camera, use the lights in different ways to make each object look great and get good consistent photos every time. The schedule is here: DougBaldwinPhoto.com/classes.html.

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